The highest priority is given to software that can be downloaded from the internet and used at no cost.
New product categories will be added, and the existing ratings updated.
| Asynchronous | Synchronous | |
Text-based |
Discussion/ bulletin boards |
Chat/ Messaging |
Audio/ video |
||
Polling |
||
Delivery |
||
The site is designed to help distance educators and their students to select appropriate methods of course development and delivery. Athabasca University (AU) in Alberta is Canada's Distance Education University, teaching over 20,000 students around the world, completely via distance education methods and media. The evaluation site is maintained by AU's Centre for Distance Education (CDE), as a collaborative activity by its faculty and graduate students.
The selection of software reviewed on the site is completely impartial, and no reviews on the site are by persons with any commercial interest in the products reviewed. The reviewers do not claim the selection of software to be exhaustive, nor that the reviews take account of the most up-to-date versions of the software. Suggestions for products to be added to the site's review base are welcomed.